Pat Metheny continues to innovate. At the same time, having just turned 70, his work has become more reflective, looking back at absent friends, bygone mentors and old songs, and considering how they shaped — and continue to shape — him. Entering the sixth decade of his career Metheny continues to make boundary-blind music that, though clearly in touch with a wealth of traditions both orthodox and esoteric, is unmistakably his own.
Category: The AD Interview
Richard Metzger :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
“Changing reality is a group sport.” Richard Metzger has been documenting the counterculture for decades with projects like Disinformation and the beloved blog Dangerous Minds. Now, he’s launched Magick Show—a survey of modern occultists. He joins us to discuss online media, counterculture, and art and explain how “magick” is a part of it all.
Billy Talbot :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Way back in the 1990s, Neil Young started mentioning Early Daze, a collection of previously unreleased studio recordings he made with Crazy Horse in the late 1960s. As with most everything in Shakeyland, it was a long time coming … but this summer Early Daze finally emerged. Worth the wait? Oh yeah.
For further insight, we went to one of the guys who was there for it all — bassist Billy Talbot.
Anthony Pirog :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Always fearless in his pursuit of sonic fusion, the wizardry of Anthony Pirog continues to invade new melodic landscapes. Hard noise. Ambient. Jazz. Punk. Experimental noise funk. He joins us to discuss collaborations with members of Fugazi, Nels Cline, James Brandon Lewis, Jerry Gilgore, and more.
West of Roan :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
West of Roan is a duo of Annie Schermer and Channing Showalter, two visual and performing artists, who share a love of old folk and myth, close harmonies, shifting drone and puppets. Though grounded in old, ancestral traditions—Celtic and Norse mythology, unadorned singing and the plangent tones of fiddle—the pair have resolutely avoided folk purism. “We’re pretty careful about performing traditional music,” Showalter explains.“ We think it through and we think about what we want to say about the song that we’re singing that’s not ours, and if we don’t feel like we really have much to say about it, we don’t always choose to sing it.”
Ethan Iverson :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Ethan Iverson is a rare bird, a jazz musician who’s just as adept at writing about the form as he is playing it. As a member of The Bad Plus, the recorded a series of adventurous albums with the trio between 2001 and 2016, incorporating covers of artists like Radiohead, Aphex Twin, and Pink Floyd along the way. In 2017, he departed The Bad Plus, turning his focus to albums like his new Blue Note outing, Technically Acceptable.
Thurston Moore & Eva Moore From The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University :: A Conversation
On the occasion of his 66th birthday, Thurston Moore and his wife and creative partner Eva Moore drop in from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University to discuss collaboration and that time Henry Rollins grew out his hair.
Jake Xerxes Fussell :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
The quality of Jake Xerxes Fussell’s output has stayed remarkably consistent over his first five albums, but his confidence in his abilities as an interpreter and the audacity of his song selection continue to grow. The nine songs on his newest, When I’m Called, gather out of the vastness of the past few centuries of sung songs to talk to one another, elaborate on one another, and thread each other through with intertwined meaning.
Danny Paul Grody :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Coming relatively hot on the heels of last year’s Arc Of Day, Danny Paul Grody’s latest LP picks up right where he left off. Arc Of Night (credited to the Danny Paul Grody Duo, thanks to drummer Rich Douthit’s invaluable contributions) sees the Bay Area-based guitarist heading into more nocturnal zones over the course of seven transformative instrumentals. Aquarium Drunkard hopped on Zoom with Danny to get shed a little light on this Night.
You Can Sound Like Yourself :: David Bazan on Pedro the Lion’s Modesto
Nothing is simple. Self-knowlege is won painfully, insight by insight, song by song. On his latest album under the Pedro the Lion banner, Santa Cruz, songwriter David Bazan examines the complications of family, faith, and the past—and how it informs the present moment.
Linda Thompson :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On her new album, Linda Thompson doesn’t sing. But her ever-vibrant personality is on full display on the aptly named Proxy Music. Joined by vocalists like Rufus and Martha Wainwright, John Grant, Eliza Carthy and Dori Freeman, the record captures the melancholic spirit of her classic albums with Richard–who shows up here, too.
Alejandro Escovedo :: On Echo Dancing and His Counterculture Roots
On paper, journeyman songwriter Alejandro Escovedo’s latest album Echo Dancing is a career-spanning look back at his song catalog. In actuality, the record is something more radical—a reimagining that embraces scuzzy electronics, minimalist electric blues, and dubby vocal effects. He joins us to discuss it, dig into his counterculture roots, and share which member of the Velvet Underground “scared the shit” out of him.
Zachary Cale :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Like most of us during the dog days of the pandemic, Brooklyn singer-songwriter Zachary Cale found himself adrift, searching for inspiration in thoroughly weird times. He found it in a Red Hook art studio, where a piano sat, mostly unused. Cale’s primary instrument is the guitar — you can hear his expert playing all over his previous records. Composing on piano wasn’t his usual mode. But during those long nights in Red Hook, songs started to come.
Cornelius :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
From his home in Tokyo, Cornelius joined us to discuss the ethereal qualities that make up his current material, his longtime admiration for The Durutti Column, looking back on breakthrough album Fantasma, the Kraftwerk-inspired visual components that augment his live performances, and much more.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Will Oldham has known Daniel Higgs for decades, first in Baltimore in the late 1990s, later putting up the Lungfish auteur whenever he passed through Louisville. So when his friend, musical collaborator and Louisville neighbor Nathan Salsburg suggested covering a Lungfish song that he’d been singing to his infant daughter, it made perfect sense to Oldham.